


Mustang Sally

by Pemm



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-12
Updated: 2013-09-12
Packaged: 2017-12-26 08:33:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/963838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pemm/pseuds/Pemm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The BLU scout rushed him and Scout got the briefest glimpse of a ponytail snapping in the wind. Then she slammed her shoulder into his chest, and his foot slipped. As he plummeted toward the canal's waters, he saw her leap from the bridge to RED's battlements, her whooping lost in the thunder of her gun.</p><p>By the time he pulled his soggy ass back out of the sewers, the Administrator was howling into his earpiece: "The BLU scout has taken the intelligence!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mustang Sally

 

_You been runnin' all over town, now_  
_Oh, I guess I have to put your flat feet on the ground_

—"[Mustang Sally](www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsjFi4KkOZc)," Wilson Pickett.

 

 

 

**I.**

It was the same every match. He legged it out onto the battlements first thing, leapt onto the bridge roof, and spent ten seconds trading insults with the enemy scout as they both tried to knock the other down into the canal. Scout was damn good at it, too, gave way better than he got, he had a running streak of nine assholes dumped into the water in a row and today would make it ten.

The sirens blared and he tore out of the lockers ahead of the rest of the team, cleared the gap between bridge and battlements, and started firing at the blue blur bolting at him. "Hey! Chucklenuts! You ready for a kick in the teeth?"

"Nah buddy, my dentist he been deaf an' dumb since the first time I smiled at him," yelled the BLU, and Scout actually stopped in his tracks. "Yeah, jus' like that!" the BLU added, in a voice that was very clearly female. "Later, loser!"

The BLU scout rushed him and Scout got the briefest glimpse of a ponytail snapping in the wind. Then she slammed her shoulder into his chest, and his foot slipped. As he plummeted toward the canal's waters, he saw her leap from the bridge to RED's battlements, her whooping lost in the thunder of her gun.

By the time he pulled his soggy ass back out of the sewers, the Administrator was howling into his earpiece: _The BLU scout has taken the intelligence!_

 

 

 

**II.**

The match ended one for one, and Scout hadn't even managed to set foot into the BLU intel room. Heavy had captured it, of all people. Scout had gotten down the stairs to the underground bunker just once, only to be blown away by a barrage of rockets to the face.

Not only that, but about half of BLU team this time was made up of women. So they'd lost to girls. Sure, okay, by this point there wasn't a lot that surprised him anymore, crazy female mercs included—he'd gotten over that around the time their very own Pyro had carried the team to victory all on her own. Come to think of it he hadn't even seen that particular BLU team again after that night.

But still. Mumbling pyromaniacs were one thing. He just didn't like it, getting out-scouted by a girl.

Either way, and he wasn't even really sure why, just that he wanted to, that's all, what's it to you anyway, after the end-hours sirens rang and they all lowered their guns, Scout trotted over to where the BLU scout was dusting off her hat. "Hey," he said, casual as hell.

She was perched on one of those damn crates that just kept showing up everywhere, the ones that tunnelled up out of the ground and got catapulted in over the fences mid-match. (Mann Co. called it dynamic delivery.) It took her a second to glance at him. When she did, it was incidental, as she raised up both arms to tug her ponytail through the back of the cap. Then she tilted her head to the side, hands falling to her hips, and said, "Hey yourself."

Scout leaned up against the chainlink fence, folding his arms over his chest. “So, what, not your first war I’m bettin’?”

“‘Course not, I been battin’ heads in for six months, you wouldn’t believe how many perfectly good Louisvilles I’ve snapped.” She had an accent, kinda, she wasn't out of Boston but she had to have been from Jersey or New York, somewhere on the east coast like that, somewhere big and loud, like he was.

“Six, six ain’t nothin’, I been here a year and a half, sister, I’ve broke more bats than Heavy’s got bullets.”

The BLU scout lifted an eyebrow, smirking. “Coulda fooled me, man, but you was doin’ a real nice impression of a guy fallin’ on his ass earlier today.”

“Yeah, well.” Scout shrugged. “All part’a the strategy, you know how it is, I mean I couldn’t explain it to ya anyway, you wouldn't even get it if I did."

“Right, yeah, okay,” said the BLU scout. “Whatever helps you sleep at night. So what's your name, buster?"

"Yo hey that's classified info, thought you said you'd been here a while," Scout said. The girl scout lifted the other eyebrow and grinned as he carried on. "Against regulations, like, heck, youse ain’t even on my team. But I’ll give ya a break since you're so pretty, how’s that, ” he added, giving her his best ladykiller-look from under the brim of his hat, "you can call me handsome."

"Ooh, handsome, huh?" the girl said, slinging her scattergun over her shoulder. It was almost identical to his, except for a chip in the muzzle. Scout let his gaze travel from her gun to down her bare arm, skin darkened by the sun, over the messenger bag strap that cut between her breasts. “Up here, pal,” she said, and suddenly the gun’s muzzle was tapping his chin upward. “I know they’re frickin’ perfect an’ amazing an’ all but that don’t give you the okay to go ooglin’, trust me, you don’t want these girls mad at you.”

Scout gaped a moment before fumbling for his composure, looking sharply up. He met her eyes—it was too dark, this near sundown, to tell what color they were. “I, yeah, I sure don’t. So, hey, whadda they call you?”

"Sally."

"Yeah?"

"Hell no.” She hopped off the crate and turned to him, the hand with the gun on her hip. For a second or two she just looked him up and down, tapping one foot. "You got some learnin' to do, don't ya?”

"Waittaminute, what—?” Scout said, but she was already running off.

 

  

 

**III.**

Two days later, when he saw her on the bridge roof in the middle of battle, he whistled at her. Not a wolf-whistle because excuse you his ma raised him to respect ladies, just one sharp and loud enough to get her attention. When she looked his way, her cheek splattered with mud and possibly his teammates’ blood, he shot her a grin and tightened his grip around the baseball in his pocket. "Hey Sal, watch this!”

Up went the ball. A satisfying crack split the air as he hit it, and it was flying. It slammed into the telephone pole that reached above the chainlink fences, ricocheted off one of the metal lamps, and hit home square in the BLU sniper’s left temple, up on the battlements. The sniper crumpled. Scout whooped. “Oh damn, holy hell, yeah yeah yeah did you see that? Did—”

Sally hopped the gap between the bridge roof and the battlements as lightly as a bird, and stooped to grab the bloodstained ball from where it had rolled after beaning the sniper. She turned it over in her hand, then pulled a bat out from her bag. Scout saw her gaze move from him to the open doors to his base, and then she raised a hand with three fingers extended—three, two, one ...

A familiar scream rent the air as Soldier came barrelling out of the doors, coupled with the roar of a rocket detonating on the ground just yards from Scout. He went howling toward the bridge roof  just as Sally tossed the salvaged ball into the air—

Scout whipped his head around a millisecond too late to see the moment of impact when his ball met Soldier in midair. It caught him square in the nose, and there was a hideous crunching sound as his teammate's head snapped backwards. The ball flung him backwards in a midair somersault, and he connected with the tin roof beneath the sniper's nest. Scout didn't realized he'd grabbed his own face in a shock of sympathy pain until Soldier slid to the ground in a heap of limbs.

Scout looked back up at Sally. She was leaning on her bat, watching, with a Cheshire cat grin that only widened when she noticed his slack-jawed stare.

 

 

 

**IV.**

The stalemate remained, which was good, because it took him a week to figure out when and where Sally went running. After a few days of sprinting around in the mornings at random, he figured he'd ask Sniper. Sniper spent most mornings and evenings perched high in the towers, far from the sounds of the base and with the best view in town, so if anyone would know jack about where Sally was, he would.

It had taken progressively larger and larger bribes, and Sniper kept giving him more and more stupid, knowing looks every time he tried, but eventually he had given up the goods. Only cost Scout a month of Sniper's chores, Jesus.

Turns out she did her laps at five-thirty in the morning, a full two hours before he ever even considered dragging himself out of bed. But today he'd set his alarm, and bitched and complained to himself the whole way to pulling on his socks and shoes, told himself no girl was worth getting up for at God-forsaken dawn. Then he'd darted out the door, and found her warming up by that abandoned Ford out by the highway, just like Sniper had said.

"Hey!" Scout called as he loped up, pleased with himself. Sally jumped at the sound of his voice, and spun on her heel to face him as he slowed to a halt in front of her.

"The hell, buddy, what—what’re you doin' out here? You stalk girls a lot?" She scowled at him, and went back to stretching out her arms.

Scout shrugged. "Your form's wrong."

“My form, the hell you been smokin’, no it ain't."

"Yeah it is, you're at the wrong angle, you ain’t s’posed to bend your back like that, you do it like this, look here, watch."

“You’re doin’ it wrong, bozo, look, my aunt's a track coach okay, she frickin’ shows people what's what on runnin’ and stretchin’ and I learned my warmups off her, so I don't think I need no help off some sweaty RED, got it?” Scout threw up his hands in surrender, and she dropped her arms. They glared at each other. With the sun at her back, he still couldn’t tell what color her eyes were.

Sally said, “So you runnin' with me or what?"

"Well, yeah.”

They took off jogging the perimeter of the Teufort bases, a vast and irregular circle that weaved through farmland and tiny stands of trees. They were matched stride for stride, and even when Scout sped up Sally kept pace with him, easy as breathing. Then she did the same, and Scout smirked and poured on the speed, and soon they were both flat-out running, thundering across the desert landscape like two jackrabbits.

By the end of it they were near to staggering, and stumbled to a panting, jelly-legged halt by the abandoned car. Scout dropped onto the hood, and Sally onto the fender, and for a few minutes they just sat there, gulping air. “Not bad,” Scout said after a minute or two, when he could get the words out.

“Not bad yourself,” Sally conceded.

They were both useless on the field that day. The stalemate continued: 2:2.

 

 

 

**V.**

A week later, when Scout dragged himself in from his run with Sally, Demo sidled up to him at breakfast and just grinned at him. Scout, still dizzy with the pounding of his heart, returned the stare for about fifteen seconds before it occurred to him that this was the “shit-eating” variety of grin. “What,” he croaked, fumbling for the coffee pot.

“Nothin’, boyo."

“Then the hell’s wrong with your face?”

“Jus’ you’ve got us wonderin’ where you been goin’ every morning.”

Scout shot him a look from the corner of his eye. “Nowhere, whaddya mean, nothin’. Runnin’. That’s all.”

“‘That’s all,’ huh?” Engineer added quietly from the other side of the table, not looking up from his food.

Before Scout could say anything, Sniper joined in. “Dunno, mate, you been comin’ in awful sweaty every morning.” He glanced at Scout from over the brim of his sunglasses. “Bad form, if you ask me. Could at least wait ’til after work to be gettin’ your jollies, you been useless all week.”

“Hey, what, y’know what it, it ain’t none’a your business—”

“So,” Demo cut in, nudging him so hard that he sloshed his coffee onto the table, “how is she?”

Scout’s indignant squawk was quickly drowned by the whole table’s laughter.

 

 

 

**VI.**

He skipped their run the next day, and the day after that. So he was only a little surprised when, on the third day, he awoke to the sound of whole handfuls of gravel skittering down his window. After the fifth or sixth time he started wondering how the hell so many of the pebbles were hitting the glass, since his room was parked way up on the third floor. So he dragged himself out of bed, tripped on the sheets, and threw the window up. "What!"

There was Sally, perched on the roof of one of the shorter grain silos that sat in neat rows near the edge of the base. She had a whole bucket of gravel beside her. She leaned forward, hands on her crossed legs, and grinned. "Hey, I thought you were dead!"

"I am dead," he said. "How the hell'd you figure out which one's my room?"

"Oi got a man on the inside, mate."

Scout grimaced. He was gonna punch that jackass right in the kangaroo. "Whaddya want, I'm busy."

"Busy, busy nothin', you was sleepin'."

"Busy," Scout repeated.

She rolled her eyes. "You ain't been comin' runnin', dolt. Thought I'd come see if I'd broke your spirit already.”

"Hell no, just I figured out gettin' up at the asscrack'a dawn weren't worth it, no how no way.”

She looked at him a minute, and her expression seemed off. "Not worth—you sissy," she snapped, and Scout had to cuss and dive out of the way when she flung another handful of gravel at him. By the time he’d shaken all the pebbles out of his clothes and looked outside again, she was gone.

 

 

 

**VII.**

“Hey, doll, look, c’mon, I don’t, I ain’t even got nothin’, oh come _on_ —“

Sally kicked Scout’s scattergun out of the way, sent it spinning into the sewer waters behind them. He’d snapped his bat thirty minutes ago over the BLU soldier’s head (and she still hadn’t dropped, holy hell, these broads were insane), and his pistol had exactly zero bullets left. He was cornered.

She jammed her gun’s muzzle straight into his gut and Scout froze, hands in the air, back to the wall. Above them the screams and shots of their teammates echoed, sounding strange there in the depths of the sewer. “Sal,” he said, grinning, “give me a break. I’m, look, I’m sorry ‘bout yesterday. I am. Okay?”

He grunted in pain as she drove it harder into his stomach, almost keeling over. “Y’know,” she said, chewing her lip, “my mama, she always warned me ‘bout guys like you.”

Scout coughed. “What, handsome devils?”

“No,” she said, “idiots.”

With her free hand she grabbed his shirt collar, yanking him down to her height. Her eyes were green, and when she kissed him she didn’t close them.

Then she pulled the trigger.

Scout woke up in respawn just in time to hear the disappointed sneer in his headset telling him that his team had lost the match.

 

 

 

**VIII.**

“Just, what I mean is just you didn’t have to _gutshot_ me, alright, I mean _shit_ , I was down there twenty minutes before your pyro came and put me outta my misery.”

“You were askin’ for it,” Sal said, stretching out her legs on the old red Ford’s dented hood. “Anyway you deserved it, bein’ a jerk and all.”

From his perch on the car’s roof, Scout scowled. “I wasn’t either.” Sally leaned back enough to look at him over her shoulder, and he threw his head to the side and groaned. “Okay, yeah, I was bein’ a jerk.”

The sun was still pulling itself up over the horizon, but when they’d gotten to Sally’s Mustang that morning neither of them had felt much like running. Last day on base before RED shipped out, after all, there wasn’t a war that needed warming up for. Scout scratched at his arm and looked off toward the bases. “So I guess I’ll be seein’ ya. Good uh, good job out there.”

“Yeah,” Sally said, drawing up her legs again to lean on her knees. “You too. The thing with Sniper you did, that, that was real good, I never seen someone do that before.”

“S’all in the shoulders.”

She hummed, long and low, then turned to scuttle up to the car roof next to him. He slung an arm over her shoulder, and she leaned against him. Together, they watched the sun rise.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a fill for the excellent [tf2promptfest](http://tf2promptfest.tumblr.com) on Tumblr!
> 
> The prompt was _Scout/Female Scout - Mama said to stay away from guys like you_.


End file.
